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Hey all. First serious shot at this, so bear with some noob questions.
Trying to pull in a .LAZ file to make a site model.
I found a good LiDAR map of the site I need to model. File size isn't too bad. About 85MB.
Here is the place I downloaded the file:
https://viewer.nationalmap.gov/basic/
I search around using the term "bogachiel state park", and choose that blob.
No idea of the relative scale other than it is an X,Y,Z coordinate file. And that makes sense. Shouldn't need a scale so to speak.
I open it in an open-source web utility.
I used this one:
http://plas.io/
Realize the file is X,Y,Z format, and looks correct. It's the file I need, and it seems to be happily displayed in this web viewer.
I put a 'real world' model on my file, and set the file units to Feet, and it looks correct. The viewer plops a model of the Empire State building on the cloud file as a sanity check. I say it looks about right and carry on.
Create a new Vectorworks file. No templates.
Drag and drop the file in.
It pulls in all 23 million plus data points.
Asks me what units the file is in.
I select 'Feet'. Here is the rub:
There doesn't seem to be an input button for "X,Y,Z" on the file import dialog. Just 'lengths' like Millimeters, centimeters, meters, feet, inches.
I choose feet, because I have no idea what the software is really looking for, and the dialog makes me choose something.
Cloud opens up, and it is completely out of whack.
Points are all good, cloud looks correct, 3D views look correct, but the scale is way off.
Whats my best bet here? I don't have a clear way to 'scale' the cloud data, nor do I think that is a good idea. I can get a general idea from a bridge and some frontage, but not enough to be accurate if I scale things.
What I would like is a properly scaled version of this. If I pull a dimension along the river edge, I should see about 900' from a bridge to a turn. Instead I see a distance of about 801,000'. What am I missing here?

I have been trying to import a large point cloud and I cannot seem to figure out how to get it to the right scale.
I have tried every combination of units, both pre-setting drawing units and changing the point cloud import units and nothing I do has yielded successful results. The import has yet to come in at the right scale or x,y,z location.
Anybody out there with some tips?

Does anyone know if there's a way in Vectorworks to adjust the point display size on imported point clouds, such as LAS files.
At present I find that point clouds display well at a distance, see attached image 1, but when I zoom in to inspect closely and snap a 3D locus/stake object to a point to confirm its coordinates, the point cloud becomes very difficult to interpret due to the sparsity of points against the surrounding background, see attached image 2.
I've tried adjusting the pen thickness of the point cloud object in the attributes pallette / class settings, and searched in Vectorworks Preferences for any relevant settings, but had no luck so far.
I've discovered a very useful open source program called CloudCompare for the inspection of point clouds. This program allows the user to adjust point display size which really helps with interpretation at close range, see attached images 3-5. Note the 'default point size' adjustment buttons in the top left.
If similar control over point size display could be added to Vectorworks I believe it would greatly improve the point cloud workflow.

I have a point cloud imported from an .e57 file that is actually 7 point cloud objects. They overlay each other and together describe the building very well. I've trimmed away excess points and now I'm wondering if it's possible to turn all the points into a single point cloud object?
Cris

Ive been sent a XYZ point cloud file by a surveyor that im having trouble working with in VWX Architect 2017.
When i open it up it seems like its just a flat panoramic image rather than a 3d point cloud, is there some view / rendering setting i need to toggle on to get it to work properly ?
Ive attached 2 screenshots of what im getting with this file below.

Our surveyor is about to send us a .RCP point cloud file which he advises is openable in Autocad ReCap.
We run VWX 2014 Designer and are all on OSX (a mixture of 10.10.5 and 10.8.5 across different machines). Can a .RCP file be opened in VWX 2014 Designer ? If not can we upgrade to a newer version of VWX which will allow us to, if so which version would we need : 2015,16,17 ?